Beyond Their Beginnings In The End
by marymin
Summary: Michael explores and makes a decision, and Muse worries. (set pre-canon. contains spoilers.)


The view up here was beautiful. Beyond the toes of Muse's boots the gray stone of the curved beam dropped away, and stretched out before her lay the breathtaking drop of the mountainside. At this altitude, she could see the white puffs of clouds billowing below them. It was amazing.

And her brother, as usual, was focused on the least interesting part of the scenery.

"Michael! Come on, you're missing it!" she called over her shoulder. The view wasn't going anywhere, of course, but the sun would set in a few hours, and she did want to leave before then. Getting here had been a perilous journey involving ropes and near-invisible footholds, and lots of finger-crossing. She didn't want to do that in the dark.

"In a second," was the only reply she got, and his voice was so absent minded she doubted he'd heard a word of what she'd said at all.

With a huff, Muse turned around so she faced the ruin instead, carefully making her way along the curling stretch of stone until she stood at his side. Michael sat cross legged at the base of a carving, a book turned sideways on his lap. In it, she could see, he was carefully recording the mural itself. He had most of the base outlines down now, and was filling in the little details of the figure's cape and face.

Muse crossed her arms, looking up at the stone wall. She liked this stuff too, just not at the expense of _literally everything else_.

"Working on your book?" she teased, and this time he did hear her, his head jerking up so he could shoot her a good natured glare. "The same book you've been working on for six years?" she added, as if her disbelief wasn't clear the first time.

"I'll finish it _eventually_ ," he told her, sticking his tongue out at her before returning to his work. It was a childish gesture, one he should have grown out of a long time ago. But among siblings, it was hard to remember they were adults now, especially when their late childhood had been anything but normal, what with Michael vanishing one night in a flurry of rumors and reappearing four years later. He'd stumbled out of the night tight lipped and broken eyed and with a silver haired woman in tow that only Muse could see. Of course, after that there was no way Muse would let him leave home alone.

Lailah had elected to stay in the village this morning, to 'catch up with old friends'. She'd insisted it had nothing to do with the heights involved in today's climb, but even if that had been the reason, Muse wouldn't blame her. She couldn't imagine making this trip in those heels.

Michael made a thoughtful 'hmm' noise and looked back up at the mural, tilting his head. He was so enraptured that Muse couldn't help but tease him about his supposed book once again.

"I'll believe it when I see it," she joked, leaning down a bit to ruffle his hair. Michael swatted her away like a fly, pausing in his sketching to give her another sour look.

"I'll be done any day now," he insisted, marking his place with his thumb and flipping back over the previous pages in his notebook. Careful drawings and notes flew past, some pages mottled with water or spilled ink. "I've got everything from our journeys up until now. All I need to do is copy everything into a proper manuscript. Muse, humans have no idea most of these places exist! I know people will be interested."

She made a doubtful noise, and he scowled. "People will love it," he said, stubborn. "You believe me, right?"

This was addressed to one of the two statues that stood on either side of the mural, hands upraised. It looked like maybe at one point they'd each been holding a sword, but both of their blades had shattered at one point or another. It had to have been weather; no one came up here anyway. The two of them had had to get special permission from the guardian seraph in the village to even enter the ruins.

Muse snorted. "Looks like he's decided to stay out of this one," she said, when the statue didn't automatically come to life and defend Michael's position. Michael groaned and went back to his notes, turning to a new page. This time he was writing, quill moving at a startling speed across the blank expanse. He'd said before that the reason he wore a black glove on his right hand was because he'd only get ink on it if he wore white. Muse had teased him about that too, at the time, and he'd thrown the glove at her across the room. It was silly for him to be vain about that one thing. His cloak was covered in ink splatters anyway.

Muse turned to go admire the skyline again, venturing out onto the thin walkway. This would be much less intimidating with railings, but she supposed that would spoil the illusion of walking out into midair. She took a deep breath of sweet mountain air, the wind blowing her braid out behind her. "I'd like to live here," she said, more to herself because she was fairly certain Michael wasn't listening, "or somewhere like here, anyway." After all of this was over, however many years it took.

"We could, you know," Michael replied, voice raised slightly over the wind. Muse turned back to him, confusion written on her face. He'd turned to watch her, the notebook still open on his lap but abandoned for now. "We could stay here."

Muse was already shaking her head. "We couldn't. You saw how the villagers are here. They're suspicious of humans, and rightly so." Her voice held none of it's usual combative spark; she'd grown close to her seraphim companions over the course of the journey, and being rejected by some of the villagers had hurt a little.

Michael shrugged. "Somewhere nearby, then. Zenrus likes you,and if he said you could, no one would dare disagree with him."

With a laugh, Muse turned back towards the sky. "He'd like you too if you didn't sass him constantly."

Silence. Michael couldn't argue with that. A gust of wind ripped Muse's braid back over her shoulder, and stray strands of hair struck her cheek. The sun was starting to sink lower in the sky; they should head back soon. She sighed, hugging her arms around herself, and turned back towards the statues and Michael.

He was currently studying one of the statues intently, which wasn't unusual behavior, so Muse mostly ignored him as she made her way back over to their packs. The notebook sat on top of a coil of rope, battered and starting to crack at the binding. Honestly, he treated this thing like it was his baby and then he just leaves it here for the wind to blow away. She tucked it away into one of the packs and then straightened up to call Michael over, intending to tell him it was time to go.

Michael had taken his left glove off, the white one, and was studying the sigil of the shepherd on the back. Muse stopped, her throat tightening.

This had been a good week. Some months they had more bad days than good, days where he stared off into the distance or went without sleep for days on end or struggled to breathe evenly, eyes wide at sights that weren't there. Since entering the forest though, he'd seemed better, and Muse had wondered if that was Lailah's intent when she suggested they journey here. A spiritual trip, then, rather than one where they had to watch their back and fight possessed beasts for hours at a time. Sort of relaxing, maybe.

As Muse watched, he tugged the glove over the hand-stump of the statue and stepped back a bit, brow furrowed as he looked at it. The figure the statue depicted was almost definitely a shepherd of old, so it was fitting, but...

"Are you going to leave it here?" she asked, and he turned towards her.

Michael did this thing where he looked through you sometimes, and it used to annoy Muse to no end, but lately it'd made her stomach turn over in pity instead. He looked at the stone wall behind her, and then his eyes refocused and moved to her face. Muse repeated her question, since there was no way of knowing if he'd heard it the first time.

"I'm going to quit," he told her, as if that answered her question. Maybe it did.

Once he'd said it, his shoulders seemed lighter, and he moved to help her pack, although Muse felt frozen in place. Just like that?

She knew how this burden hurt him, so she was happy for him, but she was terrified for what he'd do without it. Or maybe she was terrified for what the world would do without him? Muse shook her head fiercely and shouldered one of the packs.

"Have you told Lailah?" she asked him. His hair covered his eyes from this angle, and he tightened the clasp on the other bag before hefting it onto his back.

"I will," he said, "when we get back."

Well, that was that then. Michael turned towards the rope they'd left hanging from the cliff, and she caught a glimpse of his expression, gaze resolute. Muse watched after him for a moment and then turned back towards the statue, which seemed to be waving goodbye to them both. The glove trembled in the wind, but didn't fly away. After a moment, she turned her back on it and followed Michael back towards the village, chasing his quickly vanishing form around the corner.


End file.
